


Keith Isn't Jealous

by Righ



Series: Endgamers (Shiro/Keith & Adam) [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam Is Fine And Listening To Lots Of Beyonce Okay, Established Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Jealous Keith (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, M/M, SHEITH - Freeform, Say No To Salad, Shadam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 03:12:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15676860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Righ/pseuds/Righ
Summary: Keith is incredibly and unapologetically jealous, surprise. Fuck Adam and his salads.





	Keith Isn't Jealous

**Author's Note:**

> Somehow these drabbles are turning into a collection.

It's not, as Lance puts it, that Keith has a Murder Glare going on every time he happens to be looking at Adam, it's more that Adam is such a tool that Keith barely restrains himself to a displeased scowl whenever he is around him. People should thank him for not having Black accidentally knock Adam into another hemisphere because he could certainly do his fucking job anywhere else, there's no _reason_ for him to stick around.

Shiro doesn't _want_ him. Can't the guy take a hint?

The kicker is that Keith doesn't even spend that much time at the garrison these days. While the other lions are stationed around the globe to aid the relief effort and rebuilding of Earth in the wake of the Galra's colonization, he lives aboard the Atlas and often wakes up next to his tired but happy fiance, a shock of white hair the first thing Keith inhales and sneezes on because Shiro is an intense cuddler. Inevitably, however, given their close proximity to the main base, Keith is dispatched to provide intel on this or that, or to confer with other alien species who join the coalition. Shiro can't be everywhere.

And yet, nearly every time Keith is wandering around his old military school for one reason or another, he spots a sandy head of blonde hair and rectangular glasses. Adam isn't usually looking at him, he's just _there_ , and even though he hasn't made a single move to get back in Shiro's pants, Keith is suspicious. He asks Krolia whether Galra have a spider-sense and ends up spending a half-hour explaining pop culture references with no definitive answer for his hard work, but he would swear the hair rises up on the back of his neck moments before Adam strides into view every single time. Shiro tells him he's only seeing Adam because he's looking for him, which is stupid. Keith doesn't like the notion of coincidences after his training with the Blades; he quickly learned there were rarely any such things.

Tonight Shiro gives him an exasperated Look when Keith mentions Adam was sneaking around the labs while Keith and Sam were discussing new tech, the video positioned so that it shows Shiro stretched out in bed with nothing but his slacks on. It is a sorely needed balm for the eyes, Keith admits to himself.

"Keith, if it bothers you so much then go and say Hi."

"Oh, sure. _'Hi there, I noticed you're keeping tabs on me because you're obsessed with my fiancé, could you stop that before I have to break your legs?'_ That'd go down great."

Shiro grins, chinning a hand at the screen.

"Maybe try it with fewer violent threats, sweetheart. Hey, can you take off your shirt?"

They don't mention Adam for the rest of the night after that.

The next morning Keith is up early to snag the freshest eggs and bacon at the cafeteria, sharing a table with the navigators and system controllers who triple-check the tech before cadets and staff wake. The conversation is dry on topics but friendly. Keith dozes a little, still distracted by the memory of Shiro jerking off on camera and spattering his prosthetic with a curse. _Cute._ So, naturally, Adam descends from whichever level of Former Boyfriend Hell he otherwise inhabits whenever he isn't floating around like a fucking miasma of Steal Yo Boy vibes to gather up a plate of breakfast that resembles a salad which irrationally makes Keith's mood drop even further.

 _Fucking salad._ At the other end of the universe you ate whatever you could, whenever you could. _Try finding a cherry tomato between a residual supernova embankment, asshole_.

"Keith. May I sit here?"

He stares up at Adam, wondering if this is an alternate reality where he has to be polite for the amusement of some Almighty yet sadistic deity. Adam waits for a response as Keith blinks, then shrugs, frozen in shock at having been snuck up on. (Lance warned him to Be Vigilant, "Adam's a smart cookie and he definitely still wants to bone Shiro, you gotta mark your territory!", and for once Keith is thinking he had a point. Except for the argument that ensued about exactly how to "mark" Shiro and Keith's fury over Lance crying with laughter over disgusting bathroom kinks. The idiot.) Keith continues to eat with his head down but that isn't good enough for Adam who clears his throat on his soggy lettuce and says,

"We'll be working together today."

"No."

It's an instinctive response, surprising Adam only a little as he raises a brow at the abject rudeness Keith is unrepentantly toting. He slides his glasses up his nose with a middle-finger and Keith narrows his eyes.

" _Yes_ , actually. Orders from the top. I'll need to commandeer your lion to track some tech that could help with —"

Keith's chair scrapes as he gets up. 

"I'm not working with you. Get another pilot assigned."

Apparently his honesty qualified as a temper tantrum because he gets a call from Shiro not a half-hour later, his lover already half-dressed in uniform.

"Keith, I just got a call from the commander overseeing munitions recoveries, she said you refused to work with Adam on his assignment today. Is that true?"

"Well —"

" _Keith_ , I need you to take out whichever teams are necessary, I don't care who is on them."

"Are you seriously trying to pull rank on me right now?" Like that would ever work. "Shiro, it's not a team, it's just _him_. I don't want him in our lion!"

Even to Keith's ears, that sounded petulant. He sets his jaw anyway.

"If you don't get this mission done, then in three days when you're back on the Atlas I'm not going to have sex with you. At all. No blowjobs, no handjobs, _nothing_. If you want me to hold your hand through a simple search and retrieval mission with Adam then you'll forfeit my _actual_ hands when you get back. Do I make myself clear?"

Shiro, Keith decides an hour later with Adam in the cockpit of Black, is possibly reverting back to being an evil clone. 

"Okay," says Adam in a bracing tone that Keith supposes is meant to command authority but which is try-hard and sounds nothing like Shiro, "follow my coordinates and we should be at the site in forty minutes."

"Why do you need a lion for this? Can't you just jump in a jeep and get there? It isn't even that far away."

"There are Galra landmines sprinkled over the terrain, we're going to deactivate and retrieve them." Hazel eyes catch violet over Adam's glasses. "You would know that if you'd read the mission outline."

"You didn't _give_ me one," says Keith tightly, pissed about carrying weapons on Black.

"I'm not your nanny, if you want a full debrief then ask for one yourself."

God, Keith hates this guy. What did Shiro ever see in him? They sit in silence for five minutes before Adam clears his throat, then again, and again, coughing hesitantly like it's impolite.

"Could you _not_?" snaps Keith over a shoulder, peering around his seat. 

"You know," Adam begins conversationally a moment later, prompting Keith to sink lower in Black's chair and will the lion to let him join with it through osmosis (it doesn't, the traitor), "I remember a time when you actually liked me."

Heat spreads up the back of Keith's flightsuit, pink staining his ears and cheeks. Fine. This is the tactic Adam is going for? Then offence is definitely the best defence.

"So that's how it's going to be, huh," says Keith conversationally, the viewscreen of a desert suddenly fascinating, "you reminisce over the good old days when I was just a stupid kid and you had Shiro hanging off your arm? Subtle."

"Keith, that's not —"

"I wouldn't sit on the bunk in the back of Black, by the way. I haven't cleaned it out since the last time Shiro was in here with me."

" _Keith_."

"Come to think of it, that bench you're perched on got some action last week too."

Adam snorts in disbelief but (to Keith's immensely petty satisfaction) gathers his tablet all the same and moves to the other bench on Keith's opposite side. He sighs, pinches his brow, and then his fingers are flying back over his holoscreen despite the annoyed line between his brows.

"Shiro said you aren't a child any longer but it would seem all evidence points to the contrary."

"You don't know me, Adam, you never did."

"Perhaps not as well as Shiro, but you weren't always this ... _aggressive_."

"You have no idea."

The tablet smacks on the bench beside Adam, startling Keith who whips his head around.

"Don't you dare think," snaps Adam, all controlled anger and svelte, neat lines straining with tension, "that because you're a Paladin and Shiro's fiance I won't report you for threatening an officer. I'm here to get a job done, Keith. Try and be professional about it for five minutes!"

"I wasn't threatening you! I was stating a fact."

Adam snatches up his tablet, eyes burning a hole in the side of Keith's chair as they tear their glares off each other. 

"Pull yourself together, _Paladin_."

"Fuck off, Adam."

They sink into awkward, dispirited silence again, this time lasting for ten minutes out of a mutual loathing to speak to the other. The next time they talk it's to calibrate the lion's computer to search for a specific frequency, clipped and to the point. Keith glances over without moving his head and sees Adam hunched over his work, a hand at his forehead shielding his view of the pilot's seat as if Keith is a distraction by default. Keith refuses to feel bad.

"We should be there by now."

Keith bites his lip in lieu of rolling his eyes, a drawl Adam's answer.

"Well, apparently we're not."

"No, my calculations on the site are precise," Adam insists, vacating his seat to peer out the front of the cockpit. "This was one of the warfronts the Galra implemented to stop the garrison getting supplies over the years, it should be littered with mines. They're visible to the naked eye but it's far easier to just scan for their frequency."

"Maybe you're using the wrong frequency."

"I decoded the script myself, it's not wrong," Adam tersely bites out. "I've run a hundred checks in the lab, the mines we're looking for were said to be here by a reliable source and practically potatoes at stealth."

"Then why aren't we finding any?"

"When was the last time your lion had a diagnostic that wasn't self-automated?"

Oh, _that is it_. Keith's fist slams on the armrest, patience snapping like flint.

"You're the one who wanted a lion for this mission, you and your stupid commander who thinks I don't have anything better to do. Don't blame my lion for not picking up a frequency that you haven't bothered to code properly!" Adam stands his ground as Keith climbs out of his seat, herding closer. "Get the hell out and look for those mines yourself, I don't care!"

Something fractures in Adam, Keith witnesses the moment those hazel eyes widen with a frantic energy never displayed on garrison grounds.

"You wouldn't, would you! You'd really drop me off here in the middle of nowhere, anything to keep me away from _him_. You're _obsessed_ —"

"He's _my_ damn fiance!"

"— with paranoid delusions about the two of us, that's why you're being so unnecessarily difficult. You're still a kid, Keith, a jealous child who can't stand it when someone else has Takashi's attention for more than five min— _ngh_!"

They crash into the nearest wall as Keith lunges for Adam who hasn't trained with the Blades of Marmora but knows exactly where to aim a knee on a man; Keith narrowly avoids getting his littler lion crushed, grunting when the impact smacks against his hip instead, right on the bone. Fists are thrown, as are kicks, and they bang themselves off more of the ship than each other as they brawl, bruises singing with the impending pain of healing all over Keith before he manages to wrestle Adam into the floor, grasping tightly at wrinkled uniform sleeves and hissing down at skewered glasses. 

"You _stay away_ from Shiro, do you hear me! Everyone knows you're his resident stalker, don't make this any worse for yourself!"

"You're a _delinquent_ , you always were —"

White-hot anger rushes through Keith's veins to hear that old dismissal coming back at him, after everything he's gone through. What makes it worse is that Adam was right; there _was_ a time when Keith had liked him, respected him.

His fist connects as he roars, pulling back for a second when Adam yelps and his expression blanches in the direction of the viewscreen instead of Keith's glowing Galra eyes.

" _The mines, they're airborne_!"

The world rocks with explosions that throw the two of them apart, leaving Keith scrabbling for the pilot seat. Adam grasps onto whatever he can, each blow sending them ricocheting into the next mine. Keith grips the steerage for dear life, teeth gritted.

"You said they were on the ground!"

"They were! This isn't right, they —" Adam peers around Keith's chair in horror at the sky front ahead, "— they look like they've _evolved_."

"Grab onto something, I need to take us down! We're going to get ripped to shreds up here —"

A thunderous boom deafens the Black Lion and the world turns white. 

Silent.

Keith recognises the sensation of falling but he doesn't feel the crash.

When he comes to there is a ringing noise in his ears and he's on his back, splayed on the pilot seat. Black's head is lolled to the side, he can tell from his own position. They're on the ground, they —

_They._

"Adam? Adam!"

Coughing in pain as he crawls free of his seat, Keith's insides lurch in a way that has nothing to do with the crash when he sees Adam stone-cold on the floor, blood covering one side of his face.

" _Adam_!"

He almost sobs in relief when he finds a pulse, hauling him into his arms with Galra strength to lay Adam down on the bunk in the back of the lion. The entire ship is dark; Black is offline. Keith shakes Adam by the arm, crouched at his side.

"Adam, _wake up_. Come on, you bastard, don't you fucking dare die —"

A wheeze is Adam's reply. Keith's head snaps up. 

"You've hit your head, I think you're concussed. Stay still, I'm going to try and comm for help."

"Mines ... ?"

"I can see them above us, you were right. They're hovering over our position. _Shit_." Keith wipes the taste of blood from his mouth and tries all the comms to no avail. He returns to the back, sitting down heavily on the floor as Adam levies himself up. "We're gonna have to wait for the lion to reboot its power."

"I ... I had no idea ... the mines, they've never had the ability to fly before."

Suddenly Keith feels very tired. Black is out for the count and they just got shaken up like a cocktail then backhanded into the desert, neither of them wearing a helmet. He sags, head lolling, and sighs.

" ... It's okay, Adam. I don't think you ambushed me with yourself along for the ride."

Adam waits a moment, then slides off the bunk to kneel beside Keith who has trouble raising his head. If he could just _sleep_ , only for a moment, then he would be refreshed to deal with their quiznaking heap of problems.

"Keith?" 

"M'fine, just tired ..."

"Keith, no, look at me," Adam shakes his shoulders and gains a scowl. "That's right, don't fall asleep."

"I won't," Keith indignantly burbles, right before he passes out in Adam's arms.

The second time he opens his eyes is far more disorientating for a number of reasons. Firstly, he's staring at the roof of the lion while flat on his back. Secondly, a wad of fabric — Adam's blazer — is rolled up under his head as a makeshift pillow, one of the foil blankets from the emergency aid box tucked in around him. He frees himself with a wobble, feeling his head and what seems to be a new massive lump on the back. The lion is dark but an amber glow pours up along the ramp that leads outside, flecks of light swirling into the night sky.

It's Adam. A fire has been lit near the lion and he's sitting cross-legged in the dirt, the glow of his tablet illuminating his face in unnaturally bright light. He does a double-take when he notices Keith sagging in the walkway, hurrying over to hook an arm around his shoulders and help him out. They crumple near the fire, wounds from the crash and each other already materializing into a black eye on Adam and a split lip on Keith, their bodies battered underneath rumpled clothes. 

For a while they sit in silence. Keith reorients his mind while Adam keeps working on his pad, trying to coax Black to wake up. _The lion sleeps tonight_ , Keith wryly thinks.

"The mines _did_ evolve, for want of a better word," says Adam, unprompted. His voice is scratchy and tired. 

"How long have I been out?" asks Keith.

"Three hours. I'm in contact with the garrison, we're working together on disabling the new frequency of the mines. Those damn things adapt to new environments based on a calculated ratio of traffic, that's why they were airborne. They adapted to the terrain. The one in the labs stays exactly where we left it because that's where we all were, on the ground with it."

Keith slumps on his side, giving a thumbs-up to prove he isn't passing out again. 

"Can't we call the other lions in?"

"Absolutely not. There's no telling what the mines would adapt to do next, I'd rather work on getting them inactive without further casualties."

Adam's hair looks more golden in the firelight, one of his eyes a swollen red. Keith rubs his face vigorously to stave off the urge to sleep.

"Hey, what happened to your head? You were covered in blood."

"Flesh wound. It looks worse than it is, whereas you took a rather severe bump to the head. Try to stay awake if you can."

The desert is cold enough at night that Keith huddles closer to the fire, hugging his body with an arm tucked under his head. When he can't bear it anymore, he says, 

"Thanks for your jacket. I left it inside." 

"That's alright." Just as Keith's head starts to hurt, Adam quietly adds, "Takashi says take it easy."

The breath stops in his lungs, frozen for a split-second. Stranded in the desert with his fiance's ex with no way to speak directly to Shiro except through said ex. Just wonderful. 

"Sure."

"He also says he's heading down to the garrison on a shuttle so he'll be there when we —" a sandy brow arches knowingly at Keith, interpreting Shiro's neutral written tone, "— when _you_ get back."

"You must really hate me."

Adam's silence speaks for itself, Keith morosely thinks, until he breaks it a while later, attention squarely on the tablet.

"I don't hate you, Keith."

"I stole your boyfriend," Keith mumbles into his arm, taking advantage of the pain in his head not to give a fuck about being so open. 

Adam finally looks up in exasperation to the stars, then to Keith. 

"If that's what you think then I'm going to check the kit for something else because you obviously hit your head much harder than I thought. I broke up with him, Keith. Maybe I ... sometimes I wish I hadn't, I wish it _hard_ , but it counts for little now." Adam shrugs and it doesn't suit the structured style that Keith has come to associate with him. "I made him fall out of love with me, we ended before he ever left for Kerberos. I came to terms with it."

"You still have feelings for him," insists Keith, drowsy but attentive with the subject revolving around Shiro. 

Adam laughs, then coughs in pain. He holds his ribs on one side, wincing. Keith thinks he landed a punch there, before the mine-strike.

"I should think anyone who has dated Takashi still has _some_ affection left for him. He's hard _not_ to love."

Keith hums his agreement. He can't help pointing out, 

"Why are you always at the garrison when I am? It's getting creepy."

Adam stares at him flatly for a moment then laughs again, hugging his side tighter.

"Part of my duties is to keep tabs on the working conditions of all the lions, I have to stay stationed where the Black one most frequents on military soil. Holt's been working on back-up possibilities if you ever have any technical difficulties ... like, say, crashing in the desert with no way to call the base. If it works on the Black one, it should work on the others; that's the theory."

"Oh." So, no stalking then. Keith looks down as Adam studies him with a pointed look as if to agree with the unspoken conclusion.

"When you're active, I'm active."

"You've been keeping an eye on me. Spying?"

"I like to think of it as _nannying_ ," sniffs Adam, prompting Keith to reluctantly crack a weak smile.

With (a lot of) help from Pidge — Adam relays the message to Keith: "Why can't you get blown up when I'm awake" — the mines are decoded. They aren't deactivated until Black is operational again and they can zoom out of the way, letting the desert explode in their wake. This won't be a retrieval of operational tech, as cited on the mission statement, but both Keith and Adam are too exhausted to care. Having said they didn't need a rescue party and could fly back on their own, it's still just the two of them in the cockpit on the journey come sunrise but the atmosphere is markedly different. All the anxiety and tension has been replaced with bone-tired aches and pains. Keith says nothing when Adam falls asleep on the floor behind his chair.

Shiro is true to his word when Keith lands in the garrison to a flurry of activity from medstaff, his white hair shining in the sunlight so that it's easy for Keith to pick him out. He takes Shiro's hand and slumps in his arms to be hugged, only gasping in pain when the bump on his head is touched. 

"Keith? What did I do?"

"No, no, I banged my head," he shrugs, absently letting the doctors and nurses corral them toward the infirmary. "Adam hit his too."

Adam emerges from the lion with a yawn, waving off Shiro's concerned glance and subsumed into the legion of white coats. He goes willingly. 

"What happened to you guys out there?" asks Shiro, grey eyes swimming with worry. He clearly expects Keith and Adam have been throwing bombs at each other, worried that he could be the cause, so Keith sets his might at ease with a soft kiss. The fact Keith isn't burning off furious energy and is instead calm as a lake goes a long way to soothing Shiro's fears, the whole story told as Keith sits obediently on a hospital bed and lets his head be poked and prodded. He sticks close to Keith, a little suspicious of the lack of ire.

It isn't until much later when they're back on Atlas (earlier than scheduled because whatever, Shiro calls the shots) and curled up in bed, that Shiro asks him what _really_ happened, the shit that neither Keith or Adam put in their debriefing. He only pulls one disapproving face when the fight comes up, ultimately curling around Keith and letting him rest in lieu of getting a lecture. Keith puts his apologies into kisses.

A week later as Keith flies back to the Atlas from the other side of the world, a message pops up on his dash. It's a file about _lions_ , of all things, and the sender's comm registers as Galaxy Garrison. It turns out to be an anthology of every known species of lion in the universe, compiled from the knowledge of each alien race in the Earth coalition. Keith barely lifts his head from it all the way home, so engrossed that when Shiro comes to their room at six, alpha-shift over, he has to drop down heavily beside Keith on the bed and literally stick his nose into Keith's business. 

"What's got you so quiet today?"

"It's a book, I think Adam made it," muses Keith, eyes skimming the tablet faster as he tries to finish the page with a fiancé snuggling into his front. 

Shiro makes an astonished noise and looks up from kissing his way under Keith's t-shirt.

"You and Adam are getting along? Okay, uh. Who are you and what have you done with Keith Kogane?"

The book drops to the floor and doesn't come into question until over an hour later, when Shiro's arm drapes exhaustedly off the side of the bed and his fingers bump the tablet. Keith cleans them both off and drops the tissues in the bedside bin, snuggling under Shiro's arm. 

"Are you reading my book?" he says, trying to sound accusing and failing.

"Yup. You really got this off Adam?"

"I think it's a peace-offering."

"And you've accepted it? Sweetheart, I'm so proud of you," Shiro says, unable to roll on his side with his ass aching from the pounding he just took and so settling for hauling Keith into a nuzzle, complete with kisses. "Good job, Keith."

The praise lights him up inside, soothed right to his core. It will probably still make Keith feel better to kick Adam into the nearest dumpster whenever he sees him interacting with Shiro in the future but at least now it'll be a classy one because Keith knows Adam is trash who ogles Shiro and probably jerks off to the thought of Keith's fiancé to this day, but he's the best kind of awful. He won't _try_ anything and, honestly, that's all Keith really has to worry about; people who _won't_ respect that Shiro is taken.

Adam is okay, Keith tells the rest of the Paladins later. Adam is _classy_ trash.


End file.
